In a recent interview, President Donald Trump falsely claimed to be the “lowest of the last 10 presidents on inflation,” seemingly based on a chart Trump posted to social media that misleadingly compares price growth over the first 18 months of his second term with total inflation at the end of his predecessors’ full four-year terms.
For that comparison to hold, of course, you have to assume inflation will be 0% for the next two and a half years — a highly implausible scenario.
A more telling comparison is to look at where inflation stood 18 months into each of the last 10 presidential terms. By that metric, Trump doesn’t have the lowest inflation at this point in his term, but rather the fourth highest.
Trump posted the video infographic — which appears to come from an Instagram creator of “viral money charts” — on his Truth Social account Aug. 9. Titled “Inflation by Presidency” and scored to dramatic music, it purports to show cumulative inflation for each of the last 10 presidential terms (not presidents) at months one through 48. The rankings change each month as total inflation grows.
After 18 months, however, the “Trump II” inflation total stops growing — because the rest of his presidency hasn’t happened yet — while the others continue to climb. As a result, Trump’s second term drops in the rankings and is shown to have the lowest cumulative inflation after 48 months.

